Cisco 3560 Switch Replacements: 1G to 10G Access Upgrade
Updated at Jan 7th 20221 min read
Today’s question is about network switch replacement. This is a question that most data centers have to face at a time. Because devices there have spent their whole lives or the growth in data traffic quantity has outpaced their capacity. Here take Cisco 3560 switch replacements as an example.
User’s Question: What would you guys recommend to replace some Cisco 3560 switches? Need to keep the budget small, but need to do VLANs and multiple port trunks and have some 10GbE capabilities. This will be used for a data center.
Answer: You’re saying that you’d like to replace some Cisco 3560 switches with new switches that support VLANs, multiple port trunking (usually by using link aggregation control protocol [LACP]), and have some 10G ports, right? And on the premise of “keeping the budget small”.
As shown in the following figure (right), in data centers, Cisco 3560s are commonly used as access switches that connect servers and applications to the network, and the top-tier switch is usually 3750. Since you need to replace the 3560 with an access switch that is capable of 10G, the Cisco 3650 would be the closest thing. At the meantime, the top-tier switch 3750 is usually displaced by Cisco 3850/Nexus FEX, in essence, a change from 1G uplink to 10G uplink.
The change will not cause much trouble when you need to install the devices and get support from a Cisco Certified Network Assistant. Below are the major differences between Cisco 3560 switches and 3650 switches.
Differences Between Cisco 3560 and 3650 Switch
Feature | Catalyst 3560 | Catalyst 3650 |
Optional stacking | No | Yes (160 Gbps) |
Native wireless controller support over Cisco IOS Software | No | Yes |
Wireless scalability | No | 25 AP's/1000 clients |
10G uplinks | 2x10 G (field-replaceable unit [FRU]) | 8x10G, 4x10G or 2x10G (fixed) |
Buffers per 48 port | 6 MB | 12 MB |
L3 feature | Full L3 | Full L3 |
Operating system | IOS | IOS-XE |
Multi-core CPU for hosted services | No | Yes |
Maximum number of VLANs | 1,024 (L2) | 4,094 (L2) |
Total number of MAC address | 12,000 | 32,000 |
Cisco 3650 Series
The 10G ports of 3650s have three choices. Here are the Cisco 3650 models that can be configured with different numbers of 10G ports:
10G Ports | Models | Total 10/100/1000 Ethernet Ports | Price (US$) |
8x10G SFP+ | WS-C3650-12x48UR | 48 UPOE (including 12 100/1G/2.5G/5G/10G ports) | MSRP: 15,800.00 |
4x10G SFP+ | WS-C3650-12x48UQ | 48 UPOE (including 12 100/1G/2.5G/5G/10G ports) | MSRP: 12,000.00 |
WS-C3650-8x24UQ | 24 UPOE (including 8 100/1G/2.5G/5G/10G ports) | MSRP: 8,600.00 | |
WS-C3650-48PQ | 48 PoE+ | 3,998.11 - 7,035.33 | |
WS-C3650-48TQ | 48 | 3,569.98 - 6,722.99 | |
2x10G SFP+ | WS-C3650-48PD | 48 PoE+ | 3,220.00 - 7,242.99 |
WS-C3650-24PD | 24 PoE+ | 1,883.00 - 3,762.74 | |
WS-C3650-48TD | 48 | 2,900.00 - 5,305.86 | |
WS-C3650-24TD | 24 | 1,783.90 - 3,795.99 |
Considering the vendors might give you a discount, you could get one 3650 series switch at a much lower cost than the MSRP (Manufacture Suggested Retail Price). However, these prices do not include optics or software licenses. Besides Cisco 3650, I know some alternatives that are also fairly good 10G access switches for practical use. They are completely affordable and can meet all your needs.
Juniper EX3400 Series
The first type is Juniper EX3400 series switches. EX3400 offers up to 4096 VLANs on Layer 2. All of them have four 10G SFP+ ports (and two 40G ports). The PoE ability is also optional.
Model | Ports | Price (US$) | Max. VLANs | Total MAC address |
EX3400-24T | 241000BASE-T, 4SFP+, 2QSFP+ | 959.00 - 1,848.00 | 4,096 (L2) | 32,000 |
EX3400-24P | 241000BASE-T PoE+, 4SFP+, 2QSFP+ | 1,112.00 - 3,255.75 | ||
EX3400-48T | 481000BASE-T, 4SFP/SFP+, 2QSFP+ | 2,110.00 - 4,866.98 | ||
EX3400-48P | 481000BASE-T PoE+, 4SFP+, 2QSFP+ | 2,175.80 - 7,256.98 |
Juniper EX4300 Series
The second type is Juniper EX4300 series switches.
Model | Ports | Price (US$) | 10G Uplink Module Option | Max. VLANs | Total MAC address |
EX4300-24T | 241000BASE-T, 4QSFP+ | 1,270.00 - 2,868.95 | 4-port 10G module with SFP+ optics | 4.093 (L2) | 64,000 |
EX4300-24P | 241000BASE-T PoE+, 4QSFP+ | 1,341.00 - 3,296.89 | |||
EX4300-48T | 481000BASE-T, 4QSFP+ | 3,037.19 - 7,256.98 | |||
EX4300-48P | 481000BASE-T PoE+ | 2,449.00 - 5,865.40 | |||
EX4300-32F | 321000BASE SFP, 4SFP+, 2QSFP+ | 3,225.00 - 12,766.98 | 8-port 10G module with SFP+ optics |
Two other switch models from Arista have similar performance to the switches mentioned above. But not many vendors can supply them now and the price is much higher compared with others.
Model | Ports | Price (US$) | Max. VLANs | Total MAC address |
7010T-48 | 481000BASE-T, 4SFP+ | 38,154.16 - 39,169.33 | 4,096 (L2) | 16,000 |
7048T | 481000BASE-T, 4SFP+ | 11,018.95 | 4,094 (L2) | 16,000 |
FS S3900 Series
One more choice is the S3900 series switch from FS. They can do the same job as the switches mentioned above at a lower cost. All the S3900 switches are stackable, and they have 10/100/1000BASE-T RJ45 ports, with 10Gb SFP+ uplinks, meeting your various network needs. Options of CLI/WEB/SNMP/SSH for easy and flexible management. Below are the FS S3900 series switch models.
Note: The S3900-24F4S and S3900-24T4S switch will soon be discontinued and can be replaced with the S3900-24F4S-R and S3900-24T4S-R switch.
Model | Ports | Price (US$) | Max. VLANs | Total MAC address |
24x 10/100/1000BASE-T RJ45, 4x 10G SFP+ | 329 | 4,000 (L2) | 16,000 | |
48x 10/100/1000BASE-T RJ45, 6x 10G SFP+ | 459 | 4,000 (L2) | 16,000 | |
20x 1G SFP, 4x 1G RJ45/SFP Combo | 4x 10G SFP+ | 479 | 4,000 (L2) | 16,000 | |
16x SFP ports, 8x 1G RJ45/SFP Combo | 4x 10G SFP+ | 439 | 4,000 (L2) | 16,000 | |
24x 10/100/1000BASE-T RJ45 | 4x 10G SFP+ | 329 | 4,000 (L2) | 16,000 | |
48x 10/100/1000BASE-T RJ45 | 6x 10G SFP+ | 459 | 4,000 (L2) | 16,000 |
Summary
Turning to the 10G network might be an urgent problem for lots of enterprises and SMBs. Choosing the right replaced switches and having a suitable network plan is an essential step. All these switches we mentioned above are great choices. And if you need other switch replacement recommendations, please contact sales@fs.com for professional advice or you can check fs.com to see more switch types and network solutions.
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